


Cold as Marble

by Aneiria



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Post-War, Unplanned Pregnancy, not everyone survived, so sad I don't know why I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23039749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aneiria/pseuds/Aneiria
Summary: The war may have ended a few months ago, but life continues relentlessly for those who survived. Hermione gets some unexpected news, and has to face the person she's been avoiding since the fateful final battle.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 18
Kudos: 171





	Cold as Marble

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say... I wrote a sad thing, and because I like to share my pain I thought I'd put it here for others to be sad too.
> 
> Please be aware this features unplanned pregnancy and isn't HEA.

‘MISS GRANGER? CAN you hear me?’

Hermione was vaguely aware of an unfamiliar voice calling her name, and a familiar arm wrapping around her shoulder.

‘Hermione, love, come on. Snap out of it, please.’

That voice she knew. She blinked hazily and turned her head slightly, to find the brilliant green eyes of her best friend looking at her in concern as he held her in his arms. ‘Hermione, are you okay?’

As she focused back on the room, Hermione saw two Healers in their lime green robes watching her in concern, one of them with a diagnostic chart hovering in front of them. The small golden orb that hung between the chart and the Healer brought everything crashing back to Hermione and she gasped greedily at the air as her heart constricted and tears threatened to drown her.

‘You’re all right, Hermione,’ Harry reassured her, holding her tighter. ‘I mean, it’s a shock, sure, but we’re all here for you. And Ron! I know he’ll freak out at first, but he’s going to be delighted, Hermione. He’ll be a great dad, you know he will.’

Hermione grasped onto Harry’s hand as the words sunk in.

Ron. Ron, who she’d been dating since after the final battle, since Voldemort had been defeated. Ron, with whom she had been taking things slowly, unable to come to terms with the end of the war and worried about rushing into anything new. Ron, who she hadn’t even slept with yet.

She turned her gaze to Harry, and he gave her a pained look that surely reflected her own face.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘It’s…. it’s not Ron’s baby, Harry,’ she admitted. ‘We haven’t… I didn’t want to rush things…’

Harry stilled and watched her in silence, the horror slowly dawning on his face as he took in her words.

‘What? Then… who? Hermione?’

She shook her head blindly, and felt a stray tear fall onto her cheek.

‘I can’t tell you,’ she sobbed. ‘Please, just – don’t tell Ron yet, okay? I need to… I need to go. I need some time alone.’

She pushed Harry away and stood up, turning to the two Healers who were still watching in concern.

‘I’m leaving,’ she announced grandly, placing her hands on her hips with more bravado than she felt.

The Healer with the chart frowned, waving her wand so the golden orb slowly disappeared.

‘I’d really like to run some more tests on you, Miss Granger,’ she said. ‘You seem a little shaken, and with the fainting spell that brought you here…’

‘Where do I need to sign to leave?’ Hermione asked firmly, and the Healer shook her head but conjured a piece of parchment and a quill.

‘Please come back if you feel unwell at all, Miss Granger,’ she said as Hermione signed the parchment with a flourish.

‘I’ll see you at Grimmauld Place this evening, Harry,’ Hermione threw over her shoulder as she strode away.

IT WASN'T UNTIL the next day that Hermione found the person she had to talk to.

It was a bright August day, the summer coming to a slow end, and she breathed in the fresh, crisp air as she approached him.

‘It took me a while to find you,’ Hermione said hesitantly, standing awkwardly before sitting down on the grass. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you since… since the battle. It’s been hard. But then you knew that.’ She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘I’m actually here for a reason. There’s something I need to tell you, Draco.’

Silence. As she expected.

She smiled sadly. ‘Thing is, I’m… well. I’m pregnant. About three months now. Only found out yesterday, when I fainted at Grimmauld Place and Harry took me to St Mungo’s.’

She shifted on the ground, cradling her arm over her barely-visible bump.

‘It was a surprise to me as well. Can you believe that one night between us created – this?’

The silence stretched on, and Hermione took a shuddering breath as she pulled her legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees and wrapping her arms around her legs.

‘I miss you, Draco,’ she said quietly, reaching out for the cold marble in front of her.

_Draco Lucius Malfoy_

_5th June 1980 – 2nd May 1998_

_Died at the Battle of Hogwarts, defending the castle and its inhabitants._

_Order of Merlin, Second Class_

Draco had died as so many people had, on the day of the battle.

He saved her life more than once, throwing a Protego over her as a Killing Curse was about to hit her, incapacitating another Death Eater before he could curse her, physically throwing her out of the way of one hex, taking it to the chest himself.

And then, when they’d almost lost hope, and thought Harry was dead, Draco had grasped her hand as if he would have dragged her away there and then. But then Harry was suddenly alive again, and everything was chaos. Draco saved Harry, with no regard for his own life, by throwing him his wand.

Bellatrix had struck her defenceless nephew down instantly at his betrayal, his silver eyes wide in death as his body crumpled under the Killing Curse. Bellatrix then turned the wand on her own sister, as Narcissa Malfoy howled with grief and threw herself at the crazed witch. Lucius Malfoy had fallen last, too slow from shock and anger to defend himself against Voldemort’s lieutenant. The entire Malfoy family, cut down in mere seconds.

Or so everyone, including Hermione, had thought.

Until she sat in that examination room at St Mungo’s, and heard those words that had momentarily caused her mind to go blank. She cried now, clutching Draco’s memorial, as if she hadn’t already spent night after night sobbing into the darkness after he’d gone.

‘Oh, Hermione.’

She tried to hold onto the cold marble, but a pair of strong arms had enveloped her, pulling her into a solid chest and stroking her hair, letting her cry until she had no tears left.

Harry pulled out his wand and cast a quiet spell, drying the tears that covered both of them. Still holding her, he reached out a hand and gently lay it on Draco’s stone, taking a deep breath.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Harry asked.

There was no anger in his voice, just a tenderness that made Hermione’s heart break all over again.

‘What could I say, Harry? You and Ron weren’t there, you don’t know what it was like at Hogwarts in that last year. Draco - ’ she stumbled over his name, her breath catching. ‘He hadn’t wanted to be on their side for a long time. I tried to convince him to come to the Order, to let us help him, but he was so scared for his parents… It was just one night, Harry, one night when things were so terrible. Neither of us had anyone else to turn to.’

Hermione went quiet, remembering the feel of his lips on hers, of his touch on her skin. She sighed and leaned her head into Harry’s shoulder.

‘I loved him, Harry.’ Her voice was small, as if she were scared by admitting it out loud the pain would be too much to bear.

Harry’s arm around her tightened. Dear Harry, her best friend, who had seen more than his share of death and grief in his short life.

‘You’re going to make him proud, ‘Mione,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re going to be a great mum, and his child is going to grow up knowing Draco’s name, knowing that his father was a hero who saved us all.’

‘You really think that?’ she said with a sniffle.

‘I do,’ Harry said simply. ‘Because it’s true. We’d both be dead if it wasn’t for him.' He let his hand rest briefly on her stomach. 'All three of us would be.’

Harry smiled sadly at her, and he looked up from Draco’s memorial and around the peace garden.

Hogwarts stood behind them, the castle quiet as it readied for the new school year starting in a few weeks. The small memorial garden stood on the shore of the Black Lake, columns of marble standing to mark each body; each death.

Behind Draco’s stood his parents. Next to them, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. Then Fred Weasley. Severus Snape. Lavender Brown. Colin Creevey. On and on the cold marble stones went, quiet under the Scottish sky. Gone, but never forgotten.

Hermione let her hand rest on her stomach again, where Draco’s baby lay in safety, unaware as yet of the dangerous world they were conceived in, or the beautiful world they would be born into. Harry dropped a kiss on Hermione’s temple.

‘Come on, Hermione,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s go home.’


End file.
